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Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Hacking People Psionically - a.k.a. Soul Jacking

In a recent interview with FutilePosition.com I mentioned (albeit briefly) the concept of "soul jacking." It's the term given to the practice of taking over someone's mind and dictating their actions using psionic powers, and it's highly illegal. But what's cyberpunk game without occasionally being on the wrong side of the law?

The initial inspiration for soul jacking came to me when watching an episode of the 1990's X-Men cartoon. In an early episode featuring Sabertooth, Professor X goes into his mind and is shown trying to physically break down a barrier to get at the villain's memories. That's a little bit of what I imagine soul jacking to be.

Taking over someone's thoughts or gaining access to their memories is a multi-step process (or at least can be with these optional rules). First one must enter the target's mind, then make their way through a variety of surface thoughts and eventually locate the memories they are trying to find. What one does with these memories once they have been uncovered is up to them, but a highly skilled (and rather scary) individual may even possess the power to alter them.

Apart from accessing one's memories, a soul jacker also has the potential to take control of the target's thoughts and actions; it's how the term got its nasty name.

Below is an excerpt from Chapter 6: Hacking Mind, Chip, and Soul. It details everything you might need to know about accessing and controlling one's thoughts. Enjoy!

Hacking People the Psionic Way – Soul Jacking

Soul jacking is the harsh new term for what was once
simply known as mind control. Though highly illegal, soul jacking is a
lucrative endeavor that can yield a lot of juicy details about someone or, in
some cases, give you complete control over them. This is the sort of thing that gave rise to
tinfoil hats, but as we’ve seen over the last 30 years or so, those don’t
work. To truly shield yourself from
being soul jacked, you need either a strong Mind or an expensive piece of antipsi
tech.

Mind control is a sub-school of the telepathy psionic power. In most circles it is viewed as a dangerous
ability and those who possess it are often stigmatized. On the other hand, those very folks who have
the gift argue (rightly so) that it isn’t their fault they have it, so why
should they be blamed? It’s a tricky
situation to be sure, but the fact remains that probing someone’s mind without
their permission is definitely not socially acceptable.

The mind control
rules outlined in the Psionics and Magic chapter discuss the basic functions and capabilities
of the power. For those interested in a
more cinematic experience though, consider the rules for soul jacking, outlined
below.

In order to attempt to steal someone’s thoughts or actions,
you first need to have the appropriate power to do so. This means you need to either possess the mind control power or a magic device
capable of emulating it. Because this is
such an illegal action, magic devices are hard to find; Magicorp makes them,
but is only allowed to sell them to military and police personnel. You will need a Rank score with a level equal to the power rating
of the device in order to find and use one legally. Naturally though, you may be able to find one
on the black market.

If you do possess the ability, you need to pick your
target. This can be literally any living
creature that possesses a brain, but works best on members of your own species. Attempting to soul jack a creature of a
different species imposes a -1 penalty – other creatures’ brains process data
differently and it is harder to make sense of the information you acquire.

Making the check is as simple as using the psionic power;
roll against the appropriate key attribute and compare your result to the
target’s opposed Mind check.
Instead of mind control being
an all-or-nothing success (or failure) though, soul jacking may require some
additional effort. Succeeding at your
first check simply gets you in the door, so to speak.

After making a successful check, you gain access to the
target’s “surface thoughts”. Surface
thoughts represent what the target is thinking right now. For animals,
surface thoughts are just simple, instinctual concepts, such as “food”,
“potty”, “play”, and so forth. More
complex creatures, especially humans, may have an infinite range of possible
thoughts.

Once you’re in someone’s head, you can choose to try to
probe their memories or try to take control of them. Decide what you’re trying to do, then make
the appropriate check using your power’s key attribute.

Probe Memories

When trying to probe someone’s deeper memories, make a
mental communication or mind control check after you’ve
succeeded at getting into their head.
The higher your degree of success, the further you can probe the
target’s memories. The chart below
illustrates the results.

Degree
of Success

You
can read…

Fair

one week of memories.

Good

one month of memories.

Great

one year of memories.

Superb

one decade of memories.

Wonderful

one lifetime of memories.

Phenomenal

multiple lifetimes of memories.*

*Assumes creature has
had multiple lives through reincarnation, a concept popular among
psychics. Including multiple lives in
your campaign may lead to some interesting stories.

Most animals have life spans too short to be represented by
higher ladder results, but that makes it all the easier to get a life’s worth
of memories from an animal. Most animal
memories remain instinctual, and depending on the creature they may have little
useful information. Some animals, like
dogs, remember a scent better than a face, for example, while others have
memories approaching those of humans.
Use your best judgment (and some creativity) to determine just how much
information you can gather from an animal’s mind.

When reading the mind of a human (or other
similarly-intelligent being) you can gather nearly any piece of information you
want. Even the deeper, subconscious
memories might be accessible if you can probe far enough back in the
character’s lifetime. You can even get
the earliest memories of a person’s childhood dating back to before anything
that person might actually be able to remember on their own.

Probing a target’s thoughts can be jarring for the
target. They remember everything that
you are detecting as you read it, which can have unforeseen consequences. For this reason, attempting to read the
thoughts of an unaware person can cause them serious confusion and, depending on
the memories you are looking for, quite a bit of discomfort. Any character who becomes distressed from the
mind reading may get a second Mind roll to attempt to force you out of their
head.

If you have the alter
memory gift, in addition to the mind
control power, you may alter or erase the target’s memory. See the mind
control entry in the Psionics and Magic chapter for an idea of what sorts of changes
you can make based on your degree of success.
To alter a target’s memory, you need to make a separate check.

Finally, if you possess the mind reading gift from the mental
communication power, you may use it to read a character’s thoughts just as
if you had the mind control gift,
though it is limited to reading mind sonly; you must possess the mind control power to use alter memory or to take control of a
character’s actions.

Taking Control

Once you’ve defeated a target’s mental resistance and
gained access to their surface thoughts, you can use mind control to gain total dominance over them. Make an opposed mind control check versus the target’s Mind check.
If successful, you can influence the target’s thoughts and actions as follows.

Degree of Success

You can …

Fair

implant a minor suggestion in the target’s mind.

Good

charm the target.

Great

charm the target and maintain control.

Superb

dominate the target.

Wonderful

dominate the target and maintain control.

Phenomenal

dominate the target and maintain control with
less effort.

Suggestion:
You implant a thought in the target’s mind that causes them to react in some minor
way. For example, you can tell the
target to “come here” or convince them that “these are not what you’re looking
for.” The target will interpret this
suggestion in the best possible light, though he will not do anything that is
completely against his nature. “Jump off
of that bridge” and “shoot your commanding officer” are examples of suggestions
that a character will not carry out.

Charm:
The target perceives you as a friend. He
considers your words and interprets them in the most favorable manner, but he
is still unwilling to do anything that goes against his nature. You must maintain control of a target’s mind
and cannot activate any other psionic powers or become distracted to a point
that you would not be able to focus on maintaining control (such as in combat
or other stressful situations).

With a Great result you may continue to activate psionic
powers while maintaining control. During
stressful situations you must make a Great Focus roll to avoid losing control of the target’s
mind.

Dominate:
You exhibit complete mental dominance over another character. They obey your orders to the best of their
ability despite their own nature and perceive you in the best possible
light. You must maintain control of a target’s
mind and cannot activate any other psionic powers or become distracted to a
point that you would not be able to focus on maintaining dominance (such as in
combat or other stressful situations).

With a Wonderful result you may continue to activate psionic
powers while dominating a target’s mind.
During stressful situations you must make a Great Focus roll to avoid losing control of the target’s
mind. With a Phenomenal result,
maintaining control requires a Focus roll of only Mediocre or better.

Note that when controlling the minds of animals and other
beings of lesser intelligence, they may be limited by their intelligence when
attempting to follow your orders. Choose
appropriate commands and suggestions based on the capabilities of your target,
or your attempt may be in vain.

We hope you enjoyed this look into the darker side of psionics. Feel free to discuss anything you've read or any questions you might have in the comments!